- cross-posted to:
- privacy
- cross-posted to:
- privacy
Summary
Elon Musk has requested access to the IRS’s Integrated Data Retrieval System, which contains personal tax information for millions of Americans.
The request has not yet been granted but has raised alarm among privacy experts and government officials.
Critics fear Musk could misuse the data, especially given his existing federal contracts. The IRS is considering a memorandum to permit access, despite strict rules against unauthorized viewing.
A federal judge has already blocked DOGE from accessing Treasury data, but other agencies remain vulnerable.
For what reason? How does accessing individual taxpayers private income/tax information allow you weed out wasteful government spending?
By arbitrarily denying regular people their tax returns for the sake of “saving money”
Yup. Tax refunds are about to become a thing of the past. For the bottom 99%, that is.
IRS audits for politically motivated reasons are about to become a thing.
And tampering for cover-ups.
I don’t think there’s anything “arbitrary” about who they fuck over.
nope. they know exactly who they are targeting. Black, gay, trans, women, poor people.
Theoretically (not wasteful spending, but corruption) - by noticing unexplainable incomes of government employees and relatives of those and politicians and their relatives. In practice - I don’t think they can be caught this easily.
Also it is a huge dataset from which one can have some insights on how to, well, optimize taxes and tax returns for whatever goal one wishes.
In practice others have already answered that.